Beyond catecholamines: Measuring autonomic responses to psychosocial context

Abstract

Despite longstanding interest among human biologists in autonomic responses to socioecological context or culture change, the adoption of autonomic measures has been limited by methodological challenges. Catecholamine secretion is the most direct measure, but not all study designs are amenable to urinary sampling, and blood pressure lacks specificity to the parasympathetic or sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. This article reviews three alternative approaches for measuring autonomic responses: salivary α-amylase as a nonspecific autonomic marker, respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a specific parasympathetic marker, and the pre-ejection period as a specific sympathetic marker. Study design considerations are discussed in detail, including ambulatory sampling protocols that permit the evaluation of autonomic responses to everyday life. Researchers interested in how culture and social experience "get under the skin," as well as those concerned with the evolution of social engagement, can benefit from these well-validated biomarkers that are nevertheless relatively novel in human biology. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:309-317, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Diversity of Hemodynamic Reactive Profiles across Persons—Psychosocial Implications for Personalized Medicine

“…Whereas nowadays a majority of studies on predictive medicine focus on genetic factors, it is also important to analyze deeper the psychosocial factors, found as relevant predictors of the health status (as mentioned above), for an integrative personalized healthcare. The results of this study suggest a taxonomy of hemodynamic prototypes in line with other studies which relate them to different psychosocial and cultural contexts [8,15,32,36,38,39,43,52,53]. These studies suggest the existence of general "autonomic coordination" profiles and physiological prototypes linked to psychological characteristics, which predict the general autonomic patterns better than the single behavior of each organ.…”

“…How could the ANS dynamics develop in order to reach such a variety of physiological reacting patterns to same stimuli? Based on Gray's [45,46], Porges' [35], and Cacioppo's [43,44] models, and previous empirical studies [8,15,32,38,41,52,53], we suggest that ANS evolves through a learning process in the person's emotional development, mainly through childrearing practices. In their psycho-physiological development, individuals learn how to adapt themselves to their environmental demands and opportunities, according to the type of environment and to emotional rearing patterns.…”

“…As the ANS behaves as a complex system, an integrative approach to fully understand the behavior of this system involves analyzing the way the different parts of the system relate and coordinate with each other in their responses to the psychosocial context. Examples in this direction are the studies of the differences in the hemodynamic responses across individuals [8,10,11,13,29], related to psychological traits [10,30] and socio-cultural factors [9,14,15,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], grounded in a relevant theoretical basis [34,35,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51], and empirical findings on the individual differences in autonomic reactivity [8,31,[52][53][54]. Furthermore, we may infer from these studies that it seems more precise to predict 'autonomic coordination' patterns (understood here as the common action of the autonomic organs in response to a given situation) than the activity of single variables, such as heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, and respiratory measures [53].…”

Applying minimally invasive biomarkers of chronic stress across complex ecological contexts

“…Increasingly, ambulatory versions have become available of even more sensitive noninvasive psychophysiology equipment that can differentiate between sympathetic and parasympathetic responses to social context. For instance, mobile impedance cardiography can be used to generate indices such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (a parasympathetic marker derived from high‐frequency heart period variation) and pre‐ejection period (a sympathetic marker based on the delay between electrical systole and the initiation of ventricular ejection) (DeCaro, 2016 ). While the most advanced psychophysiology solutions have not yet crossed the threshold where they are easy to apply in the full range of field settings where human biologists work, ongoing miniaturization of sensors and their incorporation even into consumer‐grade electronics offers near‐term hope.…”

An investigation of cardiac indices in normal sleepers and those with insomnia disorder

“…The use of PEP as a proxy for cardiac sympathetic activity has been supported by sophisticated pharmacological blockade studies (Cacioppo et al, 1994;Schächinger, Weinbacher, Kiss, Ritz, & Langewitz, 2001). With increased sympathetic activity, PEP (measured in milliseconds) shortens (DeCaro, 2016). Stroke volume is an important parameter when characterizing the mechanical activity of the heart as a pump.…”